A sweet LED accessory and its LED controller chip

BrainPad
1

We were playing with a sweet LED matrix accessory, scroll:bit by Pimoroni scroll:bit - Pimoroni

Now, we want to use this with the BrainPad but to do so we will need to know what chip is used on there. Looking at the code GitHub - pimoroni/pxt-scrollbit: pxt-microbit package for the Pimoroni scroll:bit there is not a single mention of what chip is being used! I guess I can just start with their code and modify it to work. But I am still curious about this chip!

So, peeking under a microscope at this tiny chip

image
image2069×1242 779 KB

It is TINY!!! Do you want to see it next to a pen? It is 4x4mm only!

image
image1609×1061 411 KB

How come this tiny chip withe few pins drive 144 LEDs?! Doing some searching I found out it is a part by ISSI Page Not Found

This chip is impressive, so good job for ISSI for making it and Pimoroni for using it. The board layout is also nice.

image
image1000×1000 221 KB

Next time I will be coding this little 4x4mm chip!

2 Likes
2

Er, Gus, we were doing this with the Fez Domino a decade ago.

3

I have never seen this before. Did you really use it?

4

Well we were doing the charlieplexing with only 6 pins. I lost the video of it operating.

EDIT: 6 pins on 27 leds

image
image.jpg717×538 131 KB

1 Like
5

I have done charlieplexing long ago but the chip’s size is what surprised me. But I love seeing the domino :nerd_face:

1 Like
6

Interesting stuff guys! Never used it before.
Found this video interesting becuase of the way the LED were stacked

1 Like
7

I still have the 1,000~ish blue leds that I was planning to use to make a led cube. Couldn’t figure out how to wire them in 3d though.

1 Like